b.rox

We left the heater running in the kitchen all night, and it was still 45 degrees in there this morning. Times like these make me wonder if we shouldn’t have installed central heat when we were renovating downstairs. I think we actually had a light freeze last night.
I’m glad I’m not among New Orleans’ estimated [...]

Today’s the northern solstice, the longest night of the year and the shortest day. Tomorrow the days will start to get longer again. In the fiction of Ursula K. le Guin, this day is known as Sun-Return. Out of darkness, light.
I’m always surprised how many people are completely unaware of the solstice. You could argue [...]

Here’s another brain teaser: If I’d left for work ten minutes later this morning, I would have arrived ten minutes earlier. How can this be?

Dang, it’s cold. Ever since the big rains that came through with the front on Monday, it’s been cold. All my life I’ve had central air and heat, until we bought our house in 2002. We have a couple wall furnaces, and they do the job, but you have to light ‘em manually and we [...]

It was raining heavily this morning. I got pretty soaked on the ride to work. There was a foot of water standing on parts of Drexel Drive. I could see air bubbling up from cracks in the street as I rode past. During our staff meeting word came down (via the text messaging system, [...]

I thought it would be nice if Xy and I got out of town to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Nothing fancy, just a day at the beach. After our trip to Vero I resolved that we’d get out of town every few months for the mental health benefit.
So last week I booked a couple nights [...]

Humberto is hitting Texas, but we’re feeling the effects all the way here in New Orleans. I stopped and took this picture on the way to work this morning.

If I hadn’t paused, I might have made it to the office relatively dry. As it was, I got a soaking. But as my friend Kevin “Toast” [...]

I wasn’t going to make any mention of Hurricane Dean until such a time as New Orleans is in the National Hurricane Center’s five-day forecast cone — which I hope won’t happen. But now Dean is bearing down on the Lesser Antilles, and is already affecting the lives of some people I’ve come to know [...]

Today is the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. It’s also the shortest day on the other side of the equator. For this reason some people favor calling it the Northern Solstice or the June Solstice. After all, it’s not summer in the southern half of the world.
Every year I learn a [...]

It’s not even hurricane season yet, and already we’re looking at Andrea?
…EARLY-SEASON SUBTROPICAL STORM FORMS OFF THE SOUTHEAST U.S. COAST…
I’ve never even heard of a subtropical storm before.
With all apologies to my friends named Andrea — I don’t like the looks of this at all. It doesn’t bode well for the season to come. I [...]

Sleep deprivation on the Monday following the time shift is a widespread phenomenon. There is even evidence that it results in an increase traffic fatalities. I know I personally tend to feel groggy. And so…
This year, a week before Daylight Saving Time took effect, I started setting our alarm ten minutes earlier each day. During [...]

Xy and I always enjoy a good hearty squash soup in the winter.
Unfortunately, winter seems to have ended here before we could use the squash we’d picked up at the grocery. The weather has been positively springlike and lovely since Lundi Gras, and I even heard a weather guy on TV say the “meteorological winter” [...]

Last night’s warnings about severe weather proved all too true. A tornado tore through New Orleans in the wee hours of the morning. The swath of damage seems to go all the way from Westwego on the west bank of the Mississippi, across the river and through east back neighborhoods: Riverbend, Carrollton, Mid-City, Gentilly, Pontchartrain [...]

Good news: A recent survey indicates three-quarters of the greater New Orleans population has returned.
Bad news: The same survey says the city itself (Orleans Parish) is only at 41% of its pre-storm population. Worse, another survey indicates one-third of people here are planning to leave within the next couple years.
Good news: Hurricane season is officially [...]

One year ago today: Tropical Storm Arlene.

If Alberto avoids us
If Beryl doesn’t break us
If Chris doesn’t crush us
If Debby doesn’t drown us
If Ernesto doesn’t exile us
If Florence doesn’t flood us
If Gordon doesn’t gank us
If Helene doesn’t hammer us
If Isaac doesn’t ice us
If Joyce jogs away at the eleventh hour
If Kirk doesn’t kill us
If Leslie doesn’t level us
If Michael doesn’t maul us
If [...]

We’re firing up the air conditioners tonight, for the first time since Katrina shut ‘em down. It’s only 86 degrees in our living room, but Xy’s a wimp. Plus our ceiling fans are still out of commission (along with all our overhead electrical wiring). I guess Summer has begun.

At least one person understood the true purpose of my Jazz Fest heresy: whoring for free tickets. Thanks, Howie! Xy and I had a good time. We stayed for all of an hour and a half, had a good lunch, and left just before it rained.

Wednesday wasn’t enough. I’m declaring an entire month of ashes. We can call it Ash March. Or maybe the March of Ashes. That sounds about right.
I guess it’s called Lent if you want to get technical. I’m not drinking until Easter at least. No, I’m not Catholic, but it feels right to give it up [...]

According to NASA, 2005 was the hottest year on record.

These numbers are alarming, and that’s just the tip of the (rapidly melting) iceberg. 2005 wasn’t even an El Ni?±o year.

It is no longer correct to say that “most global warming occurred before 1940″. More specifically, there was slow global warming, with large fluctuations, over the [...]